DAY 5: East Africa Secondary School Games notebook

FAMED FOOTBALL CHANT HEARD

*****

You have all heard that famous chant inside almost every football stadium across the world: Campiones Ole! Ole! Ole! Football’s most famous chant made an appearance at St Joseph’s College Layibi as the host fought to make the Brookside East Africa Secondary Schools last eight.

A multitude of locals came to Layibi to cheer as their team thrashed Tanzania’s Alliance Boys 3-0 to advance. This is the loudest this place has been as the cacophony created was sufficient to drown anything else.

RUGBY LESSONS FOR POLICEMEN

*****

These games have brought so many new things to Gulu, especially for the Uganda Police. “What sport is that?” one policeman asked at a hockey game on Monday. Rugby can sometimes pass to very brutal. On Wednesday, two policemen guarding the teams at Comboni Vocational Institute got their rugby lesson. There was so much adrenalin flowing as Kenya’s Laiser Hill and Kakamega battled. With every stoppage, they shoved and pulled jerseys. One policeman asked Yayiro Kasasa, the rugby commissar here, if he should call for reinforcements. He feared there was going to be full blown war. It didn’t happen.

PARENTS FOLLOW ACTION IN GULU

*****

There are about 3,500 students camped here in Gulu. They reside at Sacred Heart Secondary School (girls) and St Joseph’s College Layibi (girls). Imagine if these students’ parents came to Gulu to cheer their children.

That would imply 7,000 parents, if both mother and father were here. However, parents who watch their children in this region aren’t many. But those that are here are doing a commendable job. Most of these are Kenyan and a handful from Uganda. Among the latter is freelance journalist Andrew Jackson Oryada whose son, Martin Odada Oryada, is a swimmer.